JET1971 said:
Early in the game if you want to do crafting it makes sense to collect materials for crafting while traveling. but at later levels if you decide to level crafting it doesnt matter if you buy the materials because you have the coin and dont need to worry about power leveling as you are strong enough that an extra 10 non combat levels wont hurt any.
I'm sorry, but ore veins simply do not just pop up during regular exploration, and they're easy to miss even when they do. If you're looking for a particular ore vein, your chances of finding it while on an otherwise unrelated random adventure are minuscule, even if you're after common ore like iron. But sure, like I said - if you do bump into them, take what you can get, same as everything else in the game. But hunting them down when you can buy them so quickly and affordably is just silly.
You're totally right about wolves and bears etc being quite common, but they're nowhere near common enough to take smithing to 100 in an average player's game unless said player is going to save every piece of leather from the very start and only level smithing once their character level is 50 and never use fast travel. You might get the occasional couple of smithing levels out of "found" hides as you go (and I mentioned that already) but when it comes to leveling to a particular goal level (in order to produce a certain type of armour/weapon) your choice is indeed going to come down to random roaming in search of animals to kill, or just buying the leather.
Also, you mention that ingots/leather cost more than they produce, which leads me to believe you didn't read my post properly before attempting to make a counterpoint, which is foolish. My advice to the person was to level smithing
and enchanting gradually and simultaneously, because that way
enchanting the iron daggers you produce will result in the sale value being greater than the purchase value of the components, even at low level speech. And since soul gems can be very easily filled in literally any adventure, you don't even have to buy full ones, making profits even greater still.
Look, I get that you have a niche, you like hunting and foraging for stuff to make your equipment. I understand that, because when you acquire all the components for something without handing over any coin, it really feels like it's yours, the product of your own hard work, more than any other way. But I'm not trying to advise anyone on how to get the best experience, because that's subjective. I'm speaking only of
efficiency, and there is no question - it is quicker, easier, and more efficient to simply
buy everything that you don't find while blundering around, rather than dedicating time to monotonously gathering them.
Even from a very low-cash starting point (say, 1,000 gold) it's possible to enter Whiterun with no materials and level 15 Smithing/Enchanting, and then leave Whiterun with level 30 Smithing/Enchanting, a set of improved & enchanted steel equipment, and 3,000 gold.
and i was only one mission off). Other than that train restoration it's slightly over powered as expert healing gives 300 health in one (which is pretty much all you health bar even at high levels) and get the slow time shout as it is the best way to kill enemies more powerful than you (you can avoid all hits and do allot of damage).
